1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gloss processing apparatus which applies any glossy effect to a sheet of paper by performing a gloss processing on the sheet of paper on which any clear toner has been provisionally fixed.
2. Description of Related Art
In the recent year, in order to allow an image to be vividly represented in a printing field such as photograph(s), a photo book and a product leaflet, any gloss processing to enhance a glossy effect has been performed. In the gloss processing, a clear toner has been generally applied to a top surface of the sheet of paper in which an image has been formed. The top surface of the sheet of paper then has any glossy effect by heating and pressing the clear toner to smooth the top surface, by putting a sheet-like thin film having any smoothness on a top layer of the image or by coating water-soluble varnish or ultraviolet curing materials on a top surface of the sheet of paper.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-211055 has disclosed an image forming apparatus that performs a series of a paper-supply processing, a printing processing and a glossing processing in one apparatus to control the glossy effect to be applied on the image based on property of the sheet of paper.
This image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-211055 may have low productivity because it performs a series of processing from the image forming processing to the gloss processing in one apparatus. Since this image forming apparatus is not an apparatus for exclusive use of gloss processing, the image forming apparatus may be insufficient for compatibility of electro photographic output. It is thus difficult to obtain high glossy effect (for example, glossy effect that is greater than that by varnish coating).
On the other hand, apart from the image forming apparatus that performs such an image forming, a gloss processing apparatus that has an off-line configuration and is an apparatus for exclusive use of gloss processing has been developed. In such a gloss processing apparatus, the top surface side of a sheet of paper can have any glossy effect by, for example, re-melting clear toner layer, which has been provisionally fixed on an image forming side of a sheet of paper, smoothing the surface thereof by using smoothing member, solidifying the smoothed clear toner layer by using cooling fans, and peeling the sheet of paper from the smoothing member.